Chapter Four #2
“If you’re not sure, you can attend our first meeting and see how you feel about it. You’re not obligated to join after one meeting.” Christina offered him a piece of paper with information. “Brendan and Javier will also be there with me.”
Aiden unconsciously glanced back. The newcomer wrote down their contact information, and Brendan triumphantly took the paper from the newcomer’s hands.
A genuine smile reached his face, and he patted his brother’s photo again.
“Can you tell him thank you?” he asked Christina. “This means so much to me.”
“If you wait just a few more seconds, he’ll probably make his way back here.”
He looked back over to Brendan, who smiled and waved goodbye. “He seems busy. I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Too late—his mission is you now.” Christina stepped to the side.
Brendan marched back with such determination that Aiden needed to take a few steps back. His hair blew back from the speed of the incoming boy. “Would you be interested in joining? This is a photography club.”
“I already gave him the rundown,” Christina called, taking a seat by the table.
“Oh—are you interested?” Brendan eagerly turned his head back around.
“I…dunno.”
“Then come to the first meeting at least. A trial run.”
Aiden had never met someone so unabashed about what they wanted that their thoughts practically screamed through a megaphone. Recruit more people. Now that he’s at the table, get him interested. Get more people into photography. It’s fun.
Unable to hold back any longer, Aiden turned his head to the side and chuckled. “Is your club dying or something?” he joked, only to stare in surprise as Brendan’s head flopped up and down in agreement.
“Basically it was just me, my friends, and the last president who decided to quit the second he recruited us, so now it’s just us three. Please check it out! I promise it will be fun. I’ll make it fun.” Any more resistance, Aiden swore Brendan was close to getting on his knees to beg.
He held up his hands. “I’ll come.”
Brendan’s eyes sparkled, and a small jaunt entered his steps. “Good! I’ll see you then.”
“Ah, wait.” Aiden stepped forward and grabbed Brendan’s arm.
“Hmm?” Brendan turned around.
Awkwardly, Aiden let go of the sleeve. His brother’s photo rested comfortably, hugged around his palm. “Thank you.” He met Brendan’s eyes. “That photo truly means a lot to me. I really can’t thank you enough.”
Brendan blinked in surprise. A mischievous light entered his large blue eyes, and a smirk crawled on his face. “Then thank me by joining the club.”
· · ·
I’ll just drop in. I don’t need to be there for the whole time. Aiden looked down at his brother’s picture.
His brother continued smiling.
“For him, I should go.” Nodding to himself, he placed his brother into his wallet.
Aiden’s steps started big and brisk when leaving his apartment to approach campus, but they grew smaller the closer he got to the club’s meeting room. They stopped entirely around the corner of the hallway to the designated classroom.
He pulled out his phone, read over his stepmother’s lack of messages since, and watched the clock tick closer to the start of the meeting.
For five minutes, he listened to someone greeting newcomers outside the door.
If it’s Brendan, then I’ll go in, but if it isn’t him, I’ll just leave.
It sounds like there’s a lot of people, and he’ll be too distracted to remember me. He peeked his head out.
“Ah! I know you!” Javier’s razor-sharp eyes locked with Aiden’s instantly and bounded over before he could back up and run for his life.
“Oh—yes, I’m Aiden?” His voice tilted forward when Javier dragged him out from around the corner and pushed him into the room.
“I think we have everyone, Brendan!” Javier announced and took his seat in the front of the room.
Brendan’s eyes met his and snuck in a soft smile.
Well…I guess it’s good I’m here. Aiden curled up in the back of the room as the president of the club took his place before the crowd.
“Welcome, everyone. I’m really glad to have so many people interested. First off—this isn’t a professional photography club, so please don’t let your skills deter you from joining. We’re just here to have fun and take some pictures.”
Aiden pulled his legs up on the chair, watching Brendan pace the room. He enunciated words clearly like chimes on a spring day, and he walked with broad, straight shoulders. His eyes always gazed out at the audience and kept eye contact with someone in the room.
Almost like it’s calculated.
Aiden searched the other boy’s movements, checking for the blatant curation of hand gestures, eyes glancing, and trained smiles everyone in his family partook in.
But Brendan’s blue eyes that sparkled of enthusiasm were the same eyes that Aiden first saw. They hid nothing.
“All right, now that the boring speech is out of the way, thank you Mr. President, let’s get to the fun part,” Christina stepped forward to laughter. “We’re doing a photo scavenger hunt. We’re all participating. Oh, and whoever gets all of them first gets free ice cream coupons!”
The atmosphere instantly shifted to jolting bodies, eager head bobs, and louder talking.
“Scavenger list on the board! Take a photo and scram!”
Phones flashed around Aiden, and by the time he finally took a photo of the list, the room was already empty. Blinking in the silence, he couldn’t help lightly laughing. “People really want their free ice cream.” He left the classroom smiling.
The first item on the scavenger checklist was a photo of a statue, so Aiden took a quick photo of the school building statue outside. He looked at the next item. “Common…” He laughed again. “I wouldn’t even know what that means.”
Leisurely, he wandered the campus. Buildings were common to see when walking to classes.
Groups of friends eating together was a common sight to behold.
Squirrels and birds, completely unafraid of the people walking around, became a common incident after the initial surprise of their lack of fear wore off.
I guess so many things can be common. A small jump entered his step.
Common butterflies, the grassy fields, and the public busses driving around the tiny streets of campus.
The list continued in his head, and he added more with every small thing he looked at.
It was fun to decide on his own.
Aiden finally settled on taking a photo of an ancient tree with a trunk so wide that it took several people holding hands to circle around it.
Animal. It would be nice if I can find a different animal than the grackles and pigeons. Perhaps one with bright colors. He looked toward the nearest chirping and started jogging toward the unafraid birds.
“Stop him!”
He jumped at the frantic demand. Scurrying like its entire life depended on it, an albino squirrel skirted around Aiden’s legs and toward the giant, ancient tree. Hot on the albino squirrel’s heels was none other than the president of the photography club.
“Ah, watch out!” Brendan was running downhill in his pursuit, but gravity had taken control from the president’s long legs.
Calmly, Aiden danced around the unstoppable president. He watched with wide eyes as Brendan dug his heels into the ground, failed to come to a reasonable stop, and tripped over his own feet.
“Ah.” Aiden reached over, but it was too late. The venerable president’s face planted hard to unforgivable concrete, because the boy refused to sacrifice a large camera hugged in his hands. Instead, his arms raised triumphantly to the sky, holding the camera safe from the ground.
“Damn it!” Aiden jumped again when Brendan leapt back to his feet, not even bothered by his scratched-up nose. “I wanted to take a photo of that albino squirrel.”
Aiden looked to the tree, where the albino squirrel was nowhere to be found. “Maybe you can find it again?”
“No, there’s only one on campus. It’s considered lucky if you can take a photo of it.
” Only then did Brendan slightly take note of his wounded nose by lightly touching it with a hiss.
His attention, however, quickly returned to the large camera in his hands.
He cuddled it to his chest. “This is okay, so that’s all that matters. ”
The jiggle inside Aiden’s throat couldn’t stop.
“Pfft.” Tears sprung to Aiden’s eyes. He rested his hands on his knees in a slight attempt to still stand, but the laughter couldn’t stop.
Mortified, he tried to rein his voice in, but his mind constantly replayed the squirrel running around him and Brendan’s face changing from frustration to horror to relief to panic and back to relief all in a matter of seconds.
“I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out between his tears, wiping them away from his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, go on. I got too into it. I know. What human thinks they can outrun a squirrel? You don’t need to tell me.”
“Show some respect,” his stepmother’s voice echoed.
Gasping, Aiden snapped his head back up, already forming words of apologies, but instead, Brendan was smiling before bursting into laughter himself.
The laughter finally died down, leaving a weightlessness in Aiden that he never experienced.
He stepped closer to Brendan. “Are you on the third point as well?”
“I’ve actually been jumping around on the scavenger list.” Brendan inched even closer, showing his camera to Aiden.
This is too close. It was dangerous to let strangers within a certain space, but Aiden stopped himself from stepping back upon seeing the photo reflected in Brendan’s camera.
“Wow…” A circle of white mushrooms sprouted from the dark grass, while sunlight angled in through the branches of the tree above, lending a heavenly aura to the entire photo.
“Yeah, that’s my photo for ‘religion.’ It’s like cult worship.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“What photos have you taken?”